


The Way You Walk Away

by hestia_lacey



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Adultery, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-30
Updated: 2011-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-25 02:32:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hestia_lacey/pseuds/hestia_lacey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John had RSVP’d his invite to Ronon and Amelia’s wedding, he’d signed it John and Nancy Sheppard. When Rodney RSVP’d to Ronon, there had been no other name on the card.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way You Walk Away

When John had RSVP’d his invite to Ronon and Amelia’s wedding, he’d signed it John and Nancy Sheppard.

He matched his cummerbund to the deep green of Nancy’s dress and been sure to wear the cufflinks her father had given him when they were first engaged. He held her hand for photographs, sat with her through the service and reception dinner, careful to hold her chair out when they were seated by the usher, and sure to wheel her slowly around the ballroom when the married couples took the floor after the newlyweds had the first dance.

He filled her champagne glass, sat with one arm slung around her back, deliberately didn’t notice the way she flirted with their waiter, young and blonde and far more her type than John had ever been. Kissed her on the cheek when she left for bed, waiter trailing behind at a discreet interval.

Across the room his father is dancing with Amelia, a respectful waltz that ends when he spins her into Ronon’s arms with a flourish. Ronon hooks her in close to his side, shakes Patrick Sheppard’s hand, smiles wide and bright like he’ll never be tired of it, then excuses himself to sweep his wife out in a swirl of white silk when the band strikes the opening bars of something brassy and rag-time. John’s father watches them indulgently. Ronon is the best security Sheppard Utilities had and Amelia is the darling of Patrick Sheppard’s secretariat; his father approved of the match, approves of seeing young people settled like he thinks they should be.

Like John and Nancy. Like he thinks they are.

John wonders, sometimes, what his life would be if he’d voiced all the ‘fuck yous’ he’d always wanted to throw at his father. If he’d been less ashamed of his desires, of his want for the sky and adventure and other men, less afraid of striking away from the things he knew: duty, responsibility, honour. Family at the centre of it all, more important than anything else.

John married Nancy for those things, but didn’t get any of them. Nancy married him for his surname. They might have been friends once, but John’s marriage is a business arrangement. Everyone knows, but they’re mostly too proper to talk about it, so long as they at least act the part of husband and wife. He tells himself it’s not lonely and most of the time he believes it. But watching Ronon and Amelia, Teyla and Kanaan, Richard and Elizabeth… it’s hard to convince himself it’s true.

The champagne dulls the edges of the sharp ache in his chest, the dancefloor where the couples sway together.

It dulls Rodney’s approach, too; John starts in his chair when the other man taps his shoulder, almost loses his seat. “It’s just me, moron,” Rodney says as he drops into the empty space beside John, steadying the flute of Moët John clips with his sleeve in his unsteadiness.

“Hey,” John says, swallowing hard. When Rodney RSVP’d to Ronon, there had been no other name on the card. He wore a well-cut tux matched to Ronon’s own, had shown John to his seat at the church without meeting his eyes. He’d been seated with the rest of the operations team at the table along from John, set between his deputy, Radek, and Laura Cadman who had taunted Rodney out onto the dancefloor earlier in the evening. John had looked pointedly away from the two of them; Rodney can dance, though he hates to admit it, and John knows he would have looked good out there among the others, good with Laura pressed up against him. Too good for John to stand.

John’s eyes stray to the dancefloor again despite himself, watching his father lead Jennifer Keller into a quick-step that has both of them laughing; Jennifer is a country girl, more suited to a square dance than anything else. John sips at his champagne again, fizzy and unpleasantly warm on his tongue.

Rodney follows his gaze and snorts unattractively. “Does he plan on dancing with everyone?”

“Just the women,” John says, and downs the rest of his glass. Rodney is silent at his side.

“Nancy left?” he says eventually, plucking the white-pink rose from his button hole and twirling it casually between his fingers. John nods, then reaches over and takes the rose from Rodney’s hand, deliberately lingers over the action to brush the tips of his fingers over Rodney’s, tests the texture of the petals against his skin. The brush of Rodney’s fingers plucks at the knot in John’s stomach, makes heat spread there, rise up along his spine.

He can feel his father’s eyes on him from across the room. Because Rodney is brilliant, probably the most valuable asset the business has, but John’s father has a deep dislike of him; Rodney has never known what the inside of the closet looks like – he thinks outside of the box, applies that to everything. And there are rumours about Patrick Sheppard’s son, about Rodney McKay. They’re inevitable because of the amount of time they spend together, disproportionately large for just business, the way they argue over lunch, the way they smile together.

The things they whisper are mostly true, though they’re both careful to be sure murmurs never become facts. John doesn't really know why they do that.

John plucks out the petals of the rose, one by one, scattering them across the white of the tablecloth. “Where are you staying tonight?” Rodney asks, voice soft as the petals.

His knee presses into the side of John’s calf beneath the hem of the tablecloth. Arousal unravels in John’s gut at the pressure, blushes out across his cheeks.

John doesn’t answer. Instead, he reaches into the inside pocket of his tux and takes out the key card for the other room he always books when he and Nancy have to go away together. He slides it across to Rodney, throws the naked stem of the rose down into the mess of rose petals and walks away. In his peripheral vision, John sees Teyla try and distract his father with a hand to his arm, sees Radek and Elizabeth and even Ronon edge closer, alert, ready to distract, to divert. They cover him, them, and John feels more for them than he’s ever been able to say.

Despite their efforts, there are disapproving eyes on the line of his retreating back as he leaves. But there are far more welcome ones caught on the sway of John’s hips, the dip of his waist. John’s hard by the time he gets to the elevator, and grateful there’s nobody there to see; the cut of his pants is close, too tight to hide anything.

Christ, John thinks as he hits the button for the top floor, hands shaking. The ascent is smooth but the pull of gravity is still stronger than usual, rolling up through John’s body as the floor numbers count the distance to his suite. Even that feels good; Rodney turns John on, and until they had fallen into this thing they have John had never understand what that meant. Rodney flips a switch in him, electrifies him; John can feel every nerve light up when he thinks of the other man, feel his heartbeat in every part of his body. Even the tug of gravity in his belly is arousing, makes him shudder.

The doors open with a dull ring. John doesn’t bother to make himself look any less than what he is, turned on beyond the point of caring, champagne still bubbling through him, warm and liquid and golden as arousal. Instead, he fumbles into the room as quickly as he can, toes off his shoes and socks, shucks off his jacket. He’s sweating in the cotton of his dress shirt, so he looses his bowtie, flicks open the collar, lets it hang open around his neck.

Part of him wants to take it all off, strip down so it’s just Rodney’s clothes between their skin when he arrives, but more of him wants to wait; they never get to do this. John wants Rodney to know he’ll wait for him.

John paces the floor, door to window to bed, then sits on the edge of the mattress, legs spread apart and waits.

The tick, tick, tick of the clock on the window ledge somehow makes time slower even as it counts off the seconds.

Outside, John hears the muted bell of the elevator, quiet footfalls growing louder as his heart pounds faster; the click of the door lock makes him jump, tightens his groin. Rodney steps into the room, closes the door quickly behind him as someone else passes in the corridor. He waits - tick, tick, tick - until the lock snicks back into place before he looks at John.

When he does, his eyes slide along the lines of John’s body, pupils blown wide and dark, catching in the hollow of John’s throat framed by the material of the bow tie, the swell at his fly, John’s bare toes curling into the carpet, fingers clenched into the sheets. John lets his eyes do the same, hungry to look now that he can. Rodney is as hard as he is; John licks his lips at the hard line of Rodney’s cock pushing at his pants. The movement makes Rodney swallow hard.

“God,” Rodney says, and crosses the space between them in three quick steps, shrugging away his jacket, kicking away his shoes, falling to his knees in the vee of John’s legs with a moan.

“Rodney - ” John gasps. They both reach for each other at the same time: John’s hands frame Rodney’s face as Rodney hooks John to him with a palm at his nape, the fingers of his other hand pushing through the strands of John’s hair, holding on tight as their mouths meet. Hard and fierce and slick, lips sliding together, biting kisses that gentle to long, hot thrusts of tongue against tongue, wet and sloppy and aching. Thirsty.

The twist of Rodney’s lips has curled into the corner’s of John’s awareness all day; mouth soft at the exchange of vows, pulled into an amused upward curve at John’s awkward speech, open on the rim of a wine glass. To finally have them on his feels better than he knows what to do with.

“All day,” Rodney pants when he slides his mouth across John’s cheek, down to his jaw, “All fucking day, John,” hands sliding down John’s neck, his back, tracing his waistband from the hollow of John’s spine to the buckle of his belt, fingers hot even through the expensive fabric of John’s shirt.

“I know,” John rasps, “I – k-know,” he moans, stuttering when Rodney’s hands flick open the catch of the buckle, pull at his fly until it’s gaping open. Rodney tugs the leather of the belt free, yanks at John’s pants. “Off,” he says, impatient; John smiles and obeys, lifting his hips and pushing at the material. Between them they wrest John’s boxers and tailored pants into a rumpled twist of black and white that Rodney shoves to one side, out of the way. John’s cock rises hard and red between his legs, hard enough to be leaking already, shiny in the dim light.

“Oh,” Rodney breathes at the sight of it; the damp heat of the exhalation wraps around John, makes him lift one hand to Rodney’s head. “Yeah,” Rodney whispers, closing one hand tight around the base, dipping his head to lick a broad swipe across the puffed head of John’s cock. He drags his bottom lip along it, points his tongue into the slit, smearing precome over his upper lip when John’s hips twitch forward at the sensation. “Jesus,” John gasps, hand clenching as best it can into Rodney’s hair.

Rodney closes his mouth loosely around the head, sucks gently, teasing. The action draws a long, frustrated sound from behind John’s clenched teeth. This is a freedom Rodney rarely gets; touch and skin and time to savour. If this were like most of their times together, Rodney might swallow John down, suck him off hard and fast and filthy. But this isn’t most times, so Rodney suckles on the head of John’s cock, nudges it against his palate, rubs the taste of it there, lazy like he’s thought about sometimes. The best part of it is the way John lets him, despite the whine that hitches at the back of his throat, the tension Rodney can feel in his hips, way he wants to thrust for more, deeper.

After long, languid minutes, Rodney suddenly tightens his lips and lets John slide, slow, inch by inch, as deep as he can go. When Rodney’s lips meet the grip of his fingers, he stops and sucks once, hard. John’s breath catches, a high, strangled “hnh” that makes Rodney suck again, makes his hips jerk forward, cock seeking friction, heat, wanting pressure, slick.

Rodney pulls back, John’s cock slipping from his mouth with an obscene ‘pop’ that makes them both groan. When Rodney looks up, it’s into John’s glazed eyes, dark and liquid, full of heat and something else, something disturbingly fragile that makes Rodney surge up to take the red pout of John’s mouth. John sucks at Rodney’s tongue, makes a sound at the taste he finds on it. Without breaking away, Rodney drops one hand down to his own fly, pushing the material down enough to free his dick. He’s hard enough to hurt already, but doesn’t touch himself like he might if this were like the other times.

Instead, he reaches out to the joint of John’s right knee, lifts it up, pushes back until John’s foot can brace itself against the blankets. John makes a small noise into the kiss, and spreads his other leg wide, cants his hips forwards. Rodney slips his hand back to wrap around John’s cock, starts to jack him in hard, up-down flicks of his wrist. John’s mouth breaks away from his when he gasps.

“Oh my God, Rodney,” he says, dropping his hands to the sheets where they clench, white knuckled in the blankets. Rodney dips his head to take in John’s cock again, sucking it in and bobbing his head in counterpoint to the movement of his hand. With his free hand, Rodney reaches up to push against John’s chest; John falls back onto his elbows on the mattress, cants his hips up again. Rodney rubs a finger behind John’s balls, presses up along the curve of John’s ass until his fingertip encounters the tight pucker of John’s hole. When he pushes gently at the rim, John throws his head back and thrusts his hips down. When he speaks, his voice is dark and rough with want.

“You going to fuck me, Rodney?” he asks. Rodney presses the very tip of his finger down, teasing. “Want you to,” John confesses; Rodney swallows, slides the finger deeper, up to the first knuckle as John pants above him, rocks down onto Rodney’s hand then up into his mouth. “Want you to fuck me,” he repeats, and Rodney presses all the way in, goes all the way down, making John hiss.

“Like that?” he says, pulling back to flicker his tongue over the glans. His own voice sounds like rough sex.

John’s head tosses above him, shaking a ‘no.’ “More,” he manages, screwing his hips down hard. He looks beautiful and desperate above Rodney. Rodney’s cock jumps at the way John moans, at the thought of more.

Rodney fumbles in his pants pocket for the lube he’d put there that morning, knowing that they would end up here like this. They always end up together, however inadvisable it is; John could lose everything because of this, his work, the business, his family. The threat of it never stops them. That John stopped fighting it, that he’d walk out of a wedding with another man, let his father see, know meant more than Rodney could understand just then.

He pops the cap with one hand, slicks his fingers clumsily, smears the excess around John’s fluttering hole. When he presses a finger back into John, it’s in one hard slide that finds something inside that makes John keen, jerk up.

Two fingers slide in easily; Rodney fucks them in and out of John’s body until John is writhing with the motion, riding Rodney’s fingers and bucking up into the swipe of Rodney’s tongue, the slick heat of his mouth when he opens it around John’s cock. Two fingers slide into three, the stretch making John pant, lift both legs up and spread them wide. Rodney is utterly gone in the slip and slide and suck of his fingers and mouth, doesn’t understand the hand that’s tugging at his shirt front until it yanks hard enough the pull two of the buttons loose.

“Rodney,” John pants, slurring the initial. Rodney slides his mouth off John’s cock, slows the thrust of his fingers to a short push. John whimpers. “Up,” John scrapes, still pulling at Rodney’s shirt front, then “in, in,” pushing his hips to rest at the edge of the mattress, “inside me.”

“Yeah,” Rodney says, pushing his pants the rest of the way off, clumsy and so fucking desperate, “yes,” because he always wants John, always says yes, and they’re already inside each other, down to the bone.

“Fuck me,” John says, resting one leg on the curve of Rodney’s shoulder, curving the other round his waist and pulling Rodney in close. Rodney’s hands are bunched in the sheets above John’s shoulders, breathing hard into John’s neck as John reaches down between them to guide Rodney in.

When the head of Rodney’s cock presses into John’s ass, they both cry out.

Rodney stills for a moment, dazed at the way John feels, the way he makes him feel.

“Fuck me,” John repeats, breathless, using the strength in his legs to pull Rodney forward, slide him deeper. Rodney’s hips stutter and thrust hard, involuntary, all the way in; John’s back arches up off the sheets, his body a curl of pleasure beneath Rodney’s. Rodney can’t breathe with it, shakes with the force of it, of John under him. He presses his face into the side of John’s neck and tries to breathe. John turns his face down to Rodney’s, rolls his hips to move Rodney inside him.

It’s slow, too slow and too shallow, but it feels better than Rodney ever remembers it being. “Want this,” John whispers into the shell of Rodney’s ear as he moves, twists up slowly and screws himself down as hard as he can with so little leverage. “Want you like this, all the time.”

Rodney moans wordlessly, pushes up as John pushes down. “Oh,” John moans, “yes, like – like that. Hard,” he says. Rodney pushes himself up again, locking his elbows, and thrusts as hard as he can.

John screams.

John, who bites his lips raw against the sounds Rodney tries to pull from him when they do this – he screams, and other people have to have heard that, know what they’re doing. The thought makes Rodney snap his hips again and again, pushing pleasure into John until he’s boneless with sensation, until his eyes roll and his mouth is loose and messy against Rodney’s. “They’ll hear us,” Rodney says into John’s mouth, “they’ll know.”

“Want them to,” John says, biting into Rodney’s lower lip, “I want them to.”

Because John’s wife is two doors down, screwing a waiter: he doesn’t care and everybody knows. Because Dave cares more about the business than John ever has or ever will, because this life he has isn’t the one he wants. Because Rodney kissed Jennifer Keller once and John was sick with what that might mean. Because he has friends who are more of a family than the one he was born into. Because he has Rodney, and he doesn’t have to be alone unless he chooses to be.

“This,” he says, then slides into a kiss that he uses to say all the things he doesn’t have words for.

Rodney breaks out of the kiss to suck a bruise into the curve of John’s neck, where everyone will see it in the morning. It’s the scrape of Rodney’s teeth, sharp against the skin, and the idea of what it means that pushes John over the edge he’s been balanced on for what feels like hours; orgasm is sudden and profound, a lightning strike of sensation that whites out the inside of his mind.

When he comes back to himself, Rodney is still hard inside him, shaking above him with the need to come. His voice is stretched and rough when he makes a question of John’s name. In answer, John lets his legs slip from their clutch at Rodney, spreads his legs as wide as he can.

“Do it,” he rasps, looking up at Rodney with dark eyes from beneath the darker sweep of his lashes, flushed and panting and filling Rodney with urgency.

Rodney’s hands push John’s knees up and back as he surges forward, holding John open to the hard, deep thrusts of his hips. John reaches up and braces himself against the headboard with outstretched arms, gives himself over the need of Rodney’s body like he could never do before now.

“Never want to stop this,” Rodney slurs, mindless with slick and deep and John.

“Don’t have to,” John says, means it to be a promise, and holds Rodney steady when he comes inside him, shuddering and dazed.

 

Lying together later, after they'd kissed and touched and fucked slow and hard all over again, Rodney presses up against his back, sighs in his sleep.

John slips off his wedding band.

Tomorrow, he’ll scrap it. It’s not who he is anymore.


End file.
